Joan Sutherland, one of the legendary opera singers of the second half of the 20th century, died Sunday at her home near Geneva, Switzerland. She was 83.
A star in virtually all the world's top opera houses and a prolific recording artist, she began and ended her American career with the Dallas Opera.
Along with Maria Callas and Marilyn Horne, Sutherland was a major force in the mid-20th-century revival of bel canto operas by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini as well as long-forgotten operas of Handel. Her brilliant vocal technique came at the price of famously mushy diction, and she could be a stolid actress. But she was celebrated for a tone gleaming but warm, notes pinpointed in the soprano stratosphere, apparently effortless runs and trills and vivid expressivity.
Born Nov. 7, 1926, to Scottish parents in Sydney, Australia, Sutherland was inspired early on by her mother, a talented mezzo-soprano. Indeed, the young Sutherland initially thought she was a mezzo, too.
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But Richard Bonynge, a pianist, coach and conductor she met as a fellow student at London's Royal College of Music, pushed her into coloratura repertory. Married in 1954, the two collaborated in innumerable performances.
For all her renown, she was unpretentious and plainspoken.
"She was an extraordinary woman and such a fantastic artist," said Jonathan Pell, artistic director of the Dallas Opera, "but very down-to-earth and professional. She was one of the great singers of the last, or any other, century. ..."
